Suffragists and Suffragettes

Even though there were movements and petitions supporting the cause of  women´s suffrage in several countries, we are going to focus our work on the British Suffrage Movement because of its historical relevance as it was influential in winning the vote elsewhere.The suffrage movement of the United States is worth mentioning too.

In the three last decades of the 19th century,  the legal situation of women in England was improving with some advances that encouraged them to go on fighting to get female suffrage. By the 1870s there were suffrage societies all over the country, whose campaigners were mostly middle-class women, who had time and money to spend on campaigning.

Some years later, the movement had two wings with different organisations, leaders and methods of fighting: Suffragits and Suffragettes.

	SUFFRAGITS	SUFFRAGETTES
AIMS	Women to have vote in the same terms as men at that time	Women to have vote in the same terms as men at the time   Reforms to improve social conditions
METHODS	Peaceful methods: meetings demonstrations collecting petitions issuing leaflets	Direct actions/violent methods Chaining themselves Smashing windows Arsons                             “Deeds not words”
ORGANISATIONS	NUWSS   (1897) National Union of Women´s Suffrage Societies	WSPU  (1903) Women´s Social and Political Union
LEADERS	Millicent Fawcett	Emmeline Pankhurst